Global experts report that a child’s early years are critical to the rest of life. Proper nutrition and brain stimulation improve physical growth and learning ability, while the absence of proper care and feeding in the first 1,000 days can lead to stunting, poor school performance and lower earnings as an adult.

Nutrition is not only fundamental to an individual’s cognitive and physical growth, it is also the cornerstone of all development efforts, whether improving education, health, income or equality, at home or abroad. And the most important time for good nutrition is in the 1,000 days from the beginning of a woman’s pregnancy to the second birthday of her child. What happens in those first days determines to a large extent the course of a child’s life – his or her ability to grow, learn, work, succeed – and, by extension, the long-term health, stability and prosperity of the society in which that child lives.

On March 8, in celebration of International Women’s Day, Marion Bunch, Chief Executive Officer, Rotarians for Family Health & AIDS Prevention and founder of family health days, will participate in a World Bank event about inspiring women who made a difference in the world through innovative programs in the areas of education and health.

I recently read in a newspaper about a video of an obese 12-year-old who collapsed at school in Mexico and later died from a heart attack. Although the newspaper could not certify the veracity of the video, it is an awful reminder of the large burden of overweight and obesity, suffered not only by adults but children in Mexico and other developing countries.

This week, the governments of India, Ethiopia and the United States will host a Child Survival Call to Action summit, with the participation of country and global leaders. This is a timely and critical event, aimed at further strengthening global and country commitment and country accountability for MDG4, to reduce child mortality. Though we’ve seen substantial improvement on this goal, the countries that need our support and partnership most may not reach it by 2015.

My recent work in Azerbaijan convinced me that reforming medical and public health education programs is critical to revamping clinical processes and public health practices for effective prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and injuries. In this small Caspian Sea country, improving physicians, nurses and public health specialists’ educational programs—which are hampered by outdated conceptual and methodological structures and practices—is starting to receive priority attention in the country’s quest to improve health system performance.

The challenge is shared globally, as different countries are struggling to sufficiently staff their health systems with well-trained, deployed, managed and motivated physicians and nurses to provide quality medical care, and competent staff to manage service delivery and carry out essential public health work such as disease surveillance.

With few exceptions, such as the 2010 Lancet commission report*, medical, nursing and public health education reform has failed to appear in the international health agenda—yet we continue to focus on employment and remuneration of existing personnel. This has to change. Why? Simply because the adoption of and adaptation to local conditions of new knowledge, country experiences and good practices help accelerate social and economic development.